Soviet logistical failure
by Mark Shepherd
Summary: NATO attacks the USSR. Hampered by supply shortages, what will the Soviets do? R/R!


**A/N: Another something I thought up while watching a Soviet-WW2 documentary. Please R/R!**

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A Soviet rifleman and his Vodka drinking assistant were lounging in the air traffic control tower of Krasnodar airport. The NATO invasion a few months ago had pushed far into the Soviet Union and all aircraft in Krasnodar were ordered to stop the invaders at any cost. So far it looked as if the Soviets were holding the line… or so as they thought they were.

Taking a sip out of a bottle that was supposed to be Vodka, the assistant walked up to his friend that happened to be staring out of the tower with a telescope and his gun on the ground.

"What's up my friend?" the rifleman asked.

"Oh nothing much, I'm just watching the progress on how our sorties are going out," replied his friend.

"Can I see?" his curious friend asked.

"They're landing right now," the rifleman said as he looked up from his telescope to observe the landing jets.

Although the attack run initially consisted of four Su-25TM Frogfoots, only one and a half managed to return. You see, although the first one was relatively unscathed with only a few punched out panels and a damaged engine, the second one was missing a whole wing and half of the other, with the whole rear end completely sheared off. Both of them taxied onto the parking zones and waited for the maintenance crews.

At that moment, three eighteen wheelers barged into the airbase, knocking down the gate and almost crashing into a medic. As the trucks came to a stop next to the wrecked Frogfoots, the mechanics unloaded the trucks' payload of looted supplies from the local Staples, IKEA and Dollarama stores before swarming over to the two Frogfoots and attempting to patch them up with construction paper and glue sticks.

Although this scene amused the both of them, what they couldn't get around was that this was the 10,000th sortie flown in two days and the results have always been the same- Four would fly over and attack the NATO ground forces, while only two would come back. Although the pilot would usually be rather unharmed, sometimes they would appear to be missing an arm, a leg, or even half of their torso or head. (It appears that those mechanics can fix just about anything without the need of a medic.)

Although amused, the rifleman asked his vodka drinking comrade a relatively simple question.

"Don't you think that high command should have already seen the fact that air strikes were less than successful?"

His friend contemplated about this for a moment before he replied. "Well, NATO forces haven't attacked Krasnodar for almost three days now, so they must have some sort of an effect on the enemy."

"Yeah, but I don't think that's why. I think that they didn't attack because they are too busy laughing at us."

The maintenance crew found the shattered remains of the two destroyed Su-25s and proceeded to superglue the fragments back along with three-by-three wooden plank reinforcements for improved armour. Soon enough, the two wrecks were pieced together similarly to how a jigsaw puzzle is built. All four were positioned on the runway for takeoff as concrete blocks were secured onto the weapon hard points.

The vodka drinker proceeded to let his friend take the position at the telescope. "Here, watch and see what happens."

His friend did so, and watched as the four-ship screamed off in a proud formation.. At least until the Triple A teams opened up on them, littering the sky with green tracer rounds flying everywhere. Two of the planes manage to come back, with the dented one limping to the parking space, while the other one disintegrated in mid-air, crashing pieces of it into the barracks.

"See what I mean? Every time they commence an attack run, they go over the same area to get shredded like weeds in a lawnmower."

"I noticed."

"Why doesn't high command send them some other way?" the rifleman asked.

"Budget cuts," his alcoholic friend replied.

"What does budget cuts have to do with anything about getting shot down?" the rifleman questioned.

"Well, the commander pays them by the kilometre, so he sends them on the shortest route to target as possible."

"…good lord they are cheap. Wait, aren't there any regular military pilots left?"

"Nope. All of them defected to the west due to poor working conditions," the drinker replied. "The current pilots were all forced conscripts, so technically they don't count as human beings."

The two continued to watch as the mechanics proceeded to scrape up the fragments of the crashed Frogfoot from the barracks, much to the complaints of the other soldiers that claimed that made their living conditions better. The fragments were then sent to the parking area to be reconstructed again. One of the mechanics found a pack of sugar-free gum and proceeded to chew them up so they can stick up the fuel leaks in the fuel tank.

The rifleman's alcoholic friend handed him a bottle as they watched the mechanics bring out the heavy artillery- someone had found a hot glue gun and proceeded to glue wooden chair assemblies onto the broken attack jet. The alcoholic then looked down in his bottle.

"Comrade?"

"Yes?"

"I wonder if the Americans get actual Vodka."

**The end**


End file.
